Fade Away: Almost Like Saying Goodbye
by Pitry
Summary: It was supposed to be different this time. He's human, he can't regenerate - he was supposed to die before her.


"This thing, between us," she says thoughtfully, "it's kind of a mess."

"Hmm-hmm," his mouth is buried deep inside her hair. Whether he said something coherent or not, it's hard to tell.

"I know you don't see it that way, I know you think - "

"I said you're right," he says now, but there's no irritation in his voice. "We could do with shouting a little bit less at each other. Not when we're having sex, though. That's actually not that bad."

She turns around to look at him surprised, and then bursts into laughter. "I should have thanked Donna when I had the chance," she says, and it's good to see her smiling, for the first time in days. "Can you imagine _him_ saying that?"

He smiles as well. "Can you imagine his face if he ever heard me saying that?"

Now it's like she can't stop laughing.

"I should have thanked Donna as well," he says quietly. "Some things are much easier now."

"But not all of them," she turns her head back now, leaning on him with her eyes staring at the wall, so that he wouldn't see the tears. He's back to stroking her head now, and if he understands what she's hiding from him, he doesn't say a word.

X

"Let's just use the key."

"I am not using this key!"

"You already knocked on the door, Jackie, he didn't open it. Use the key - that's what we got it for."

"No, we have the key for the next time he loses his," Jackie knocked on the door again, but Pete's doubt was already creeping into her, as well.

"Just use the damn key, Jackie, if we stay here any longer we'll - "

Jackie never quite learned what will happen if they stayed there longer, because the door opened, revealing the Doctor behind it. And despite her fears, he was completely dressed, his hair properly combed - must have been five years since she saw it lying so neatly on his head - and his suit ironed. He was clothed properly for the occasion - except for the fact he had only one shoe. And the dark circles around his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said plainly, "I can't find my other shoe. I know I'm late."

"It's alright. They won't start without us," she said, exchanging a 'he-heard-everything-and-it's-all-your-fault' look with Pete and walking into the flat. There was a distinct lingering smell in there, like it's been closed for weeks - it has, in fact. The air felt dank and tainted the whole place with a claustrophobic feeling. A bit like a tomb. Maybe that's the way he wanted it. She couldn't say she blamed him.

"Are you sure you want to stay here afterwards?" she asked, all of a sudden. "You can come back with us, there's Mickey's old room, and Ro - "

She stopped, just a second before he called out from the other room, "No, Jackie, thanks. I'm fine. Really."

Pete raised an eyebrow and opened the nearest window. Fresh oxygen blew into the room, together with the sound of life of the city below them - cars, ambulances, people shouting. Pete was right, of course, but Jackie could see why the Doctor would prefer the silence.

"Got it," he showed up again, hopping on one leg while putting the shoe on the other with one hand. In the other he held a comb, battling his hair once again. Jackie could see why - it's only been three minutes, and already it looked a lot like the way she was used to.

"It's a lost cause," she commented, but he just smiled apologetically and gave it one last go. "Let's go," he said.

Pete gave him one last calculating look. The hair that seemed to be combed just a little bit too violently than it should be; the red eyes and the circles around them; his whole appearance, just a little bit more pale and a little bit more thin than he looked the last time they've seen him. And underneath his matching black shoes, because they both saw it but didn't say a word, the mismatching socks that escaped the Doctor's attention. "Keys?" Pete asked finally.

The Doctor sniffled. "I thought you had a spare."

It was by accident, when she couldn't look anymore as they were burying her baby, that she caught sight of him. The Doctor. It wasn't until she saw him like that, almost broken, that she realised she was the lucky one between the two of them. She had Pete to hold her, to comfort her, to be with her when she felt she was so alone now. She had Tony to hug until he complained that he's a big boy now and she's being annoying. She actually laughed at that this morning. And then he seemed content to give her another hug, which didn't make it better, but made it bearable.

The Doctor had no one, now that Rose was gone.

X

"What is it like?" she asks him suddenly in the darkness. She knows he's not asleep - she can hear it in his breath, feel it in his heartbeat. Despite being in a human body know, his mind races in a thousand miles per hour, and it's almost as if she can hear the little cogwheels turning. Almost, of course, because the darkness is completely silent, but she knows he's awake.

"What's what like?" at the sound of her voice, he shifts himself closer to her.

"To die," she answers, and he stops moving.

"I don't know," he answers, but after a long time. "I've never died before."

"You've regenerated."

"It's not the same."

He hugs her now, tight, almost too tight, and it's like it's _him_ all over again, thinking he can hug it all away. It's as if he realises this is what she's thinking, because now he's whispering in her ear. "I really don't know," he says, "I'd tell you if I did. I wouldn't hide something like that from you."

And she believes him.

X

This time, the Doctor opened the door after the first knock. "Brought more boxes," Pete announced and showed the cardboard boxes in his hand. The Doctor let him in without a word.

It wasn't the mess Pete was expecting. Despite the fact the Doctor's favourite method of tidying seemed to be dumping everything in one big box and hoping it would turn out to be bigger on the inside, he had rows and rows of tightly packed, neatly balanced cardboard boxes on display. The open box seemed to be a mixture of books and suits. Pete didn't quite realise until now just how many books the Doctor had acquired in the year or so he's lived here.

Or how many suits.

"So where's your new flat?" he tried. This new, untalkative Doctor was a bit unsettling.

"Ealing."

"That's a bit far, isn't it?"

"Closer to the school, actually."

"Yeah, about that - "

The Doctor looked up from his box, but he didn't look angry or upset. Just tired. "I'm not joining Torchwood, Pete. We've had this discussion before."

"Well, I was hoping you might consider changing your mind, now that - "

"Now that she's dead?"

"Torchwood meant something to her. She gave her life for that."

"No," the Doctor returned to packing, perhaps a bit more roughly than before. "She died because she was in the wrong place, in the wrong time."

Pete couldn't help but smile. In irony, perhaps, but still smile. "I thought you were going to say she died because I sent her there."

"It was her choice."

"Exactly."

"And my choice is still not to join Torchwood."

This man - alien - could be so frustrating at times. "You're wasting your life away. You're not him, you won't regenerate! You have one life, that's it! And instead of doing something really important with it, you indulge yourself in, what? A dream of an ordinary life? You can't lead an ordinary life. From all the things Rose told us about the Doctor, I thought that was the bit that was most obvious to him."

The Doctor didn't seem particularly impressed by this outburst. "As you said, Pete, I'm not him."

"So you're just going to throw your life away."

"Funny," the Doctor mused, "the government always tells us how important teachers are."

"I didn't mean - "

"Oh, yes you did."

Despite what he just said, it took the Doctor looking at Pete exactly like _that_ to remind him that no, he wasn't talking to any ordinary person right now. This was not his son-in-law. There were a lot of words that could be used to describe the being standing in front of him, but 'son-in-law' was not one of them.

They stared at each other for a bit longer before he backed down. "I'm sorry," he said.

The Doctor nodded and went back to his boxes, without a word.

"You're still a bit like him, you know," Pete had to say. "You're running away."

The Doctor looking at him thoughtfully, acknowledging his words. "I've run away all my life, Pete. I don't know how to do anything else."

X

At first, he tries to build a sonic screwdriver. With it, he could resonate the waves of the door mechanism, give it just enough leverage, and the door will open. But there's nothing to build a sonic screwdriver _from_. Sure, he doesn't have to go to the 53rd century to get the components, but something! Some sort of modulator, some sort of conductor... at least a battery. There's none of that, of course, or it won't really be a proper cell, would it.

He then tries to break out of the cell manually. Fat lot of good that is.

Eventually, he starts pacing around the cell, like a locked animal - exactly like a locked animal. He knows they're watching him - and have been all along - and that they're probably enjoying this. Look, he can't break out of our perfect cells.

After several hours even this becomes too much, and he sits down, exhausted, staring at the wall.

Maybe he fell asleep. Maybe the time just passed by without him noticing it. But the next thing he knows, the door opens.

"You're free to go," says the man on the other side.

"Where is she?"

"She has been tried by the laws of this country. And found guilty. You both knew what this means."

"And me?"

"You are not an employee of Torchwood. Your wife's testimony vindicated you of all affiliation with that - organisation. And our own intelligence suggests the same. We have no quarrel with you. You were only kept here because you tried breaking her out once - you're a bit too resourceful for our taste. As I said, now that it's all over, you're free to go. We're not barbarians," he ignores the look on the Doctor face that suggests disagreement. "And as you pose no threat to us, and have broken none of our laws, there really is no reason to keep you here. Unless, of course, you're thinking of some spectacular revenge?"

The Doctor shakes his head, almost invisibly, but immediately.

"No, we thought so. That wouldn't be your way."

The Doctor gets up and walks out of his cell - the cell he shared with her, until he woke up this morning.

"Is she - "

"Her body will be sent back to England. It might take a while - bureaucracy, you know how it is. After it's all cleared, you can do whatever you want with it. And Doctor - "

The Doctor looks at him. For a moment the man wonders whether they were wrong, all their clever intelligence, their psychological tests, their profiling... whether this man is capable of executing some terrible, desperate act of vengeance. But no, for all the anger and hatred and shock the man exhibits, the one thing that is obvious is how strongly he fights to maintain control. He can't help but want to be a bit kind to him.

"We did warn Torchwood. Please remind Mr. Tyler of that. Our policy hasn't change. If we are to catch any more high ranking operatives on our sovereign soil, we will give them a fair trial, and execute them, just as we did with Ms. Tyler. Are we clear?"

The Doctor stares at him for a long time, almost forever. "Crystal," he says at last and walks out. The man he leaves behind only now realises he's been holding his breath.

X

"Doctor!" Tony jumped on his, excited, as soon as he opened the door.

"Hey there!" The doctor hugged him, looking just as happy to see the boy.

"I'm going to school now! And I told my teacher about you, she wanted us to tell about someone special in our family, so I said we had an alien in the family, and that you save the universe! But she didn't believe me." He still looked offended at the thought.

"Well, you know how people are," said the Doctor, looking completely serious, even if there was a sparkle in his eyes. "Sometimes they think that if they have never seen anything, it can't exist."

"But don't go telling that to Mrs. Harris," Jackie rolled her eyes. "She won't be happy."

"I won't, I promise! Doctor! Do you have any chocolate? Only mum wouldn't let me have some before lunch, and then they said we'll go visit you, and I really wanted chocolate, and she promised!"

"Tell you what," the Doctor lowered his voice, as if telling a secret, "I have some chocolate ice cream. How about we go and get some?"

"Yes!" Tony grabbed the Doctor's arm and dragged him towards the kitchen. His parents followed.

"Sorry for the attack," Pete said, laughing. "He's missing you."

"You stopped coming over," Jackie added.

"I've been busy," he said, fishing for an ice cream scoop.

"I should say. Marking exams?" Pete picked up one of the papers lying around on the kitchen table. "Must take you, what, three minutes per student?"

"Pete, don't start," Jackie said sharply.

"I'm not starting anything, Jacks, I'm just saying - does your principal know these are the tests you're giving these kids?"

The Doctor sniffled. "Much better way of evaluating their abilities than the standard sort," he said.

"For you, maybe. I can't understand half of that. Although this student apparently could, A+, impressive."

"Clyde Langer. He's used to getting D's in everything except arts. And that's because of his teachers," the Doctor said while battling the frozen ice cream, "he's a brilliant kid."

"I bet." Jackie coughed pointedly, and Pete stole a glance in her direction. "Doctor, I hope you don't mind, I was hoping to show Tony some of Rose's old pictures?"

"Yeah, sure. Come on, Tony, let's - "

"No, it's alright, I'll do it. They're upstairs, right?"

"I could kill for a tea," Jackie commented.

Of course he got the message. Probably before she said it. But he still looked from Pete to Tony to Jackie, before sighing in agreement. "Okay, I'll put on the kettle - it's in the spare room, Pete."

"Great. Come on, Tony."

"But I wanted the Doctor to show me!" the boy insisted.

"I'll be right up, Tony. Promise," the Doctor said and gestured upstairs with his head. Tony sighed, in a rather exaggerated manner, and then turned and ran up the stairs. Pete followed him.

"Sugar?" the Doctor asked, as if oblivious to her real intention.

"Oh, you know," she laughed. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Well when are you going to say something?"

"I thought I just did."

She sighed now, in a similar manner to Tony's. "We had to come, you stopped showing up. Tony's really missing you, you know."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Who would have thought," he said in a sarcastic tone, "Jackie Tyler, urging me to drop by and visit."

They both started laughing at the same time. It was a bit absurd, now that she thought about it that way.

"That was a long time ago. And you always made sure to bring her back to me."

"Except the one time it mattered," he said quietly.

"It wasn't your fault, Doctor."

"I know. I know. It's just, it doesn't change anything."

"Yes," she took his hand. "Yes, it does."

"It was supposed to be different this time, Jackie. I can't regenerate. That was the one thing I was looking for. This time, I was supposed to die before her."

"She's not dead," Jackie said. "Not really."

The Doctor looked at her - surprised, concerned, slightly confused. "Jackie," he said softly, "we buried her. I saw her body."

"You know, for someone as clever as you are, you're really quiet dumb," she answered, and then, looking at his expression, rolled her eyes. "She's a time traveller. You gave her that. I know she's down there, for you, for me... but in two years she'll walk in this city, in the other universe, and will help a little girl and a lonely alien be happy again. And five years after that, in that frozen world Woman Wept, she'll help stop an invasion of lizards. She did talk to me, you know. Told me where you've been, what were you doing. In three thousand years, she'll help save Madame de Pompadour from killer robots. In the year five billion, she will look down on this planet from above. And give me a call. And in two hundred _thousand_ years, she'll save that entire universe from the Daleks. By herself. She's down there for you and me, but your making her a time traveller made her immortal. Just a little bit. The universe is still waiting for her."

He stared at her, for a long time. And then he got up and hugged her so tight. Despite that part of Donna in his head, he didn't have the words to tell Jackie Tyler just how much he loved her at that moment.

X

"I love you," he says all of a sudden, and she just laughs.

"Now I _know_ you're worried," she says.

It's the last time he hears her voice. It's almost like saying goodbye.

X

The young doctor listened to his single heart in concentration. "Well," she smiled brightly. "No harm done. You're a lucky man, Mr. Smith. Running into the fire like that - no, keep the oxygen mask on, at least for another ten minutes. You can talk all about your heroic deeds after we're sure your lungs are alright. I'll be back in ten minutes, okay?"

The Doctor nodded, and she went on to the next patient. She never did come back in ten minutes - the ground shook beneath their feet before that. A light flashed. And when they looked outside of a window, they saw -

" - we're on the moon! We're on the bloody moon!"

He heard her voice again. " - These windows aren't exactly air tight," she pointed out. "If the air was going to get sucked out, it would have happened straight away - but it didn't. So how come?"

"Very good point, Doctor Jones," he said behind her.

By the time she turned away, the sad melancholy had turned into sad nostalgia, then irony, and she only saw the matter of fact, excited look on his face. They were in a hospital, on the moon, and time was running out. Time for a new adventure.


End file.
